Friday, January 3, 1997

Please don't condemn Michael Irvin, Erik Williams - yet

By GREG COTE / Knight-Ridder Newspapers (Jan. 3, 1997)

(KRT)

You talk about your difficult personal challenges. I'll put this one up there with any, including swimming the English Channel and jogging up the steps of the Empire State Building while carrying a large dog.I am giving Michael Irvin the benefit of the doubt.

Right now, even now, as the others come after him with torches, pitchforks and a hanging noose, I shall do my duty as The Voice of Reason and Upholder of the United States Constitution.

Hey, somebody's gotta do it!

Isn't easy, I grant you. Given Irvin's recent history, allowing benefit of doubt to his denial in a sexual matter is akin to seeing a big pile of dung at the circus and trying to believe the elephant might not have done it. The thing is, Irvin deserves that benefit of doubt. Anybody would. You. Me.

Even him.

See, the phrase is "innocent until proven guilty."

It's not, "innocent unless I think he's guilty."

It's not, "innocent until proven guilty unless you're an egotistical, mink-wearing NFL star already on probation for a cocaine rap."

Cowboys-loathing football fans and a great number of my fellow journalists are rushing to judgment faster than Michael Johnson on a cinder track, but this is wrong. Much about this latest Dallas bombshell seems wrong, in fact. Smells wrong. Just FEELS wrong.

Quick backgrounder for readers who've been so Gators- and Seminoles-intensive lately they haven't had time to keep up with current events:

1. The U.S. took over control of Canada in a military coup.

2. Michael Irvin was accused by a 23-year-old Dallas woman of holding a gun to her head Sunday night while teammate Erik Williams and a third (unidentified) man raped her.

I made up No.1. But not No.2, unfortunately.

In the days since the accusation was made (and publicized in a manner that might prejudice most any jury against the accused), the consensus seems to be that Irvin and Williams should A) not only not be allowed to play in Sunday's playoff game against Carolina, but B) instead be sent directly to Old Sparky without passing Go.

People seem to forget a couple of minor points.

One is that Irvin and Williams have not been found guilty.

The other is they haven't even been CHARGED. Or arrested.

Might not be, for that matter.

Accused and charged are not synonyms, just as accused and guilty are not.

The obvious seems to bear repeating, when hysteria is involved.

Did I mention that Irvin strongly denies the accusation? And says he has a provable alibi?

Now don't mistake my point here. If Irvin and Williams are charged, arrested and judged guilty, I'll be among the first to happily spade dirt onto their football careers. I'll shed no tear as the prison door clangs and their view suddenly is through vertical bars and not a face mask.

Meantime, pending a police investigation to determine whether charges are warranted, there are other pertinent questions in this matter besides the ones being directed at Irvin and Williams.

I wonder why the Dallas police staged a news conference to announce the accusation. This was wrong. This all but indicted the two Cowboys players in the court of knee-jerk public opinion before the accusation was investigated.

Remember when the FBI and the Atlanta police identified Richard Jewell as a chief suspect in the Olympic bombing and Your Friend the Media put it in three-inch headlines? Later the cops and media announced: Oops!

Is that what will happen in this latest Cowboys controversy if no charges ever are filed? If no arrests ever are made? If the accuser just sort of disappears but the accusation never quite does?

Who'll apologize to Michael Irvin then? And what good will it do?

(Greg Cote is a sports columnist for the Miami Herald. Write to him at: Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla. 33132.)